Voice of Women/La Voix Des Femmes

Abstract: The following are excerpts from a description sent to us by a member of the Voice of Women, Calgary:

"From the early 1980's when a group of Canadian women organized to protest the atmospheric testing of atomic bombs, the Voice of Women/La Voix des Femmes (VOW) has grown into a coast-to-coast network of women working to achieve peace and freedom. . .including freedom from man-made radioactive pollution."

"The VOW Calgary Branch provides examples of how that group's interest in nuclear technology and its potentials, hazardous or benign, has continued to express itself in fossil-fueled-minded Alberta. It also reveals some of the groups who co-operated in such efforts."

"In 1971, the Calgary VOW formed a continuing committee on energy alternatives . . . By 1972. . .the Calgary VOW decided to find out what Canadian politicians and university physicists knew and thought about Canada's nuclear power industry."

"Before the 1972 federal election, the Calgary VOW mailed to every candidate and incumbent from the Calgary area two questionnaires of five questions each. An interesting aftermath to the questionnaire project was a luncheon invitation extended to the VOW questionnaire committee by the University of Calgary heads of the physics and chemistry departments and by Dr. Nancy Henderson of the biology department who had recently been appointed a director of the Atomic Energy Control Board."

"In the seven years since then, VOW members have remained a constant factor with which a number of groups in Calgary have co-operated on energy issues."